


Bubble Bobble

by angrypuppy



Category: JoJo no Kimyouna Bouken | JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-16
Updated: 2013-09-16
Packaged: 2017-12-26 18:10:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/968718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angrypuppy/pseuds/angrypuppy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for Tarigwaemir as part of the old <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/hail2jojo/6345.html">Jojo Doodle or Drabble game</a>. It was SUPPOSED to be a drabble but I couldn't get started writing and then I couldn't seem to shut up, so. uh. yeah. >_></p><p>Part 2, Joseph and Caesar genfic, featuring bubbles and totally random conversation, no spoilarz unless you don't know that Caesar's special power is SHABON SPRAY.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bubble Bobble

"Why do we have to do this? How is this going to help anything? Why is she wasting our time like this?!"

"Jojo, shut up." Caesar was crouched on the kitchen floor in front of the oven; he sat back on his heels with a sigh and surveyed the job before them. "Our master told us to do it. I'm sure she's got her reasons."

"What reason could there possibly be for this?!" Joseph's towel had been soaked in soapy water, and foam flew off it when Joseph shook it at Caesar. "Does she even care if we learn anything? Shouldn't we be training?!"

Caesar absently raised a hand to wipe the flecks of foam from his sweaty forehead. Unfortunately, his hands were wet and dirty, and it just made his face itchy. He wiped his face again, this time on his upper arm with an awkward motion, and glared at Joseph. Why had he even bothered to help this idiot out of that pit yesterday? Clearly Joseph could use a few more days down there.

"This sort of thing builds character," Caesar said, wiping his hand on his trousers and then using it to roll his short sleeves up onto his shoulders. Of course the master had picked this very hot, humid day to ask the two of them to clean the mansion's kitchen, a large room which was all stone and iron and not fully cleaned for what Caesar thought must be decades. He suspected it actually _was_ some sort of test for Joseph, and wished Lisa Lisa hadn't felt the need to include him. Or was he being tested as well?

"I've already got lots of character," Joseph griped. "I don't need more!"

"You've definitely got character, but it's not the right kind," Caesar retorted. "Just stop complaining and get back to work."

"This is ridiculous," Joseph said, heading over to the enormous ceramic sink basin to get more soapy water. "I thought this was what she had a maid for. Why do we have to clean the kitchen?"

Caesar actually had no idea why he was spending his afternoon scraping out the oven, but he wasn't about to tell Joseph that.

"Why don't you look at this as an opportunity to work on your hamon? I've been using it to help me push water into the cracks of this stove and to make scraping easier and so on; even cleaning requires control, just like anything else you do with hamon." Caesar dipped his hand in the huge bucket of soapy water sitting next to him, and then held up his closed fist, water dribbling down his arm in a narrow path and dripping off his elbow. He concentrated and then opened his hand slowly, spreading his fingers, iridescent soap film webbing the spaces between them... he blew gently and a bubble leapt suddenly from his palm, impossibly solid and perfect.

Joseph watched raptly as Caesar lifted his hand and gave the bubble a hard push; rather than popping, it sailed through the air towards Joseph and hit him in the chest, where it burst with a loud report. Joseph stumbled backwards from the force of it, his face all surprise, and Caesar smiled.

Joseph grinned back at him. "You know, I gotta admit, that is way cooler than I thought it was when I first saw it. How do you do that anyhow?" Joseph was trying unsuccessfully to summon a bubble from his soapy towel.

"I always liked bubbles when I was a kid," said Caesar. "They're like little round rainbows you can create any time... and even though they don't stick around for long, that's the impermanence of life, right?"

"I guess."

"Since I liked them, when I first learned hamon, I spent forever practicing with them. You could probably do it if you spent years practicing." Caesar raised an eyebrow to indicate his lack of faith in Joseph's ability to do this. "You know, the people who live in the Orient, they really appreciate the beauty of the ephemeral. I saw a traveling exhibition of Oriental art once; it came to the Museo Nazionale Etrusco in Rome. It was very different."

"The where?"

"A museum... in the old Villa Giulia. They have an amazing collection of things there. My mother said she went to watch on the day it opened, when she was a girl... she said all the gentry came to the opening in their finery like it was a party, but when they came out again, it was like they'd all forgotten other people were even there."

"Sounds like the stuff must be pretty interesting."

"I'll take you there sometime. You'll like it." Caesar picked up the scraper he'd been using on the oven with a sigh. "But we'll never go anywhere if we don't finish here, so stop complaining and finish up your side of the room, will you?" He turned back to the open oven door; the oven was very deep, and in order to get at the back, he'd have to take the plunge, as it were. He took a deep breath and stuck his head and arm into the uninviting black iron maw, scraper at the ready.

"Hey! Caesar! You gotta check this out!"

The sudden loud voice and Joseph's hand on his shoulder shocked him, and he jerked his head back and whacked it on the frame of the oven door.

"OW!" Caesar pulled his head out more carefully, turned to give Joseph a reproachful glare, and found himself staring into Joseph's eyes, Joseph's face bare centimeters away from his own. He pulled away, startled, and hit his head again on the oven's heavy iron door behind him. "DAMMIT, JOJO!"

"Sorry," said Joseph cheerfully. "But look at this!" He held out his hand for Caesar's inspection. Something shone and shivered at the tip of Joseph's finger, round and plum-sized, and for one shocked moment, Caesar thought it was a bubble, and that Joseph really was a genius, mastering in a minute what had taken him years.

When he looked closer he realized it was only a globe of soapy water, clinging to Joseph's finger, the water in a constant unstable swirl, trapped in the gravity of Joseph's hamon. Even so, he was impressed; only the day before, Joseph had been able to keep the water inside an upturned cup, but that was very different from doing it when the cup wasn't present. He tried not to let his feelings show on his face; the last thing he needed was Joseph's head growing larger.

"I can't make it hold a shape like Messina could," Joseph said, almost apologetically, but he looked very pleased with himself anyway. "It's pretty cool though, right? I thought, you're right, I should be using this time to practice..."

"Well, yeah, it is pretty cool... keep practicing. I'm glad to know you were actually listening," Caesar added, rubbing his aching head. "It seems sometimes with you that words go in one ear and out the other without hitting anything in between."

"Oh, come on, that's unfair, I always listen to you," Joseph said. "It's just that a lot of the time you're saying stupid crap I don't care about."

"Oh, thanks."

Joseph held his hand over Caesar's bucket and let the water fall in with a splash. "Hey, do you think I could do a bigger one?"

Caesar could almost feel the excited enthusiasm coming off Joseph in waves. "Calm down first, you need to concentrate—"

Joseph ignored him and plunged his hand into the bucket. The resulting explosion knocked them both flat on the flagstones.

There was a long pause, during which Caesar lay on his back, spat out soapy water, and found that he could not even bear to open his eyes. He did not want to see the state of the kitchen.

Eventually he sat up and wiped his face to remove some of the soapy foam that covered him from head to toe; when he finally looked up, it was to behold Lisa Lisa standing in the doorway, with a very strange look on her face.

"Caesar," she said, after a while. "When Joseph wakes up, bring him down to the west training ground, will you?"

"What about the kitchen?"

"I... you know, I think the two of you have cleaned it enough."

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I know, nothing happened, I said it was a drabble, don't look at me like that >___>


End file.
